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HOW TO READ JAPANESE ROMAJI

by Alex @ Aigoo Lyrics
Do not take out of Aigoo Lyrics without permission.

These are just a few guidelines to singing Japanese songs that have been romanized. Guidelines meaning: this will help you out, but not all of these rules are written in stone, and a performer can modify a word or phrase to be pronounced however he/she wants. With that in mind, here you go.

Things to know about singing to Japanese lyrics in romaji:

000 (Added by HUAY) - The Vowels sound like vowels in languages such as Spanish:

Vowel sounds:
a --> ah
e --> ay
i --> ee
o --> oh
u --> oo

001 Everything in Japanese is a syllable, but depending on a song some syllables might be smushed together.

example:
"anna" is 3 syllables "a-n-na," but can also be sung "an-na"

002 Some syllables are not fully pronounced depending on their position in a word

examples:
"shite" --> "shte"
"shiru" --> "shiru"
"matsu" --> "mats"
"matsumoto" --> "matsumoto"
"shimasu" --> "shimass"
"wasure" --> "wasure"

003 Sounds that flow well into each other often mesh together in singing.

example:
"shite iru" sounds like "shiteru" when sung quickly

004 There are syllables in Japanese that change pronounciation when being used as particles (sentence markers). Some romaji transcribers leave them with their original pronounciation, but separate them from other words so that the change in pronounciation should be obvious.

example:
"asoko he itte, kimi wo dakitsuku. sore ha ore no shiawasse da"

pronounciation shift:
he --> e
wo --> o
ha --> wa

005 Words with double-consonants extend the sound before the double-consonant, and sharpen the consonant sound that is doubled.

example:
"shite iru" is prounounced "shteru"
"shitte iru" is pronounced "shi-tteru" with the "tt" pronounced like the "t" in "talk"

006 Words ending in "ou" are sometimes extended in singing.

example:
"you ni" --> "yo-o-ni"

007 Words coming from other languages such as English, often written in capital letters, are not usually pronounced the same way as their mother tongue due to the limitation of Japanese sounds. To get this down really well, you have to learn one or both of the Japanese syllabries hiragana/katakana and Japanese pronounciation.

specifically:
si --> shi
zi --> ji
ti --> chi
tu --> tsu
hu --> fu
l --> r

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HOW TO READ JAPANESE ROMAJI

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